NHS Digital team wins public sector 'Boss of the SOC' award

A team from NHS Digital's Digital Delivery Centre (DDC) has won Splunk's public sector 'Boss of the SOC' awards in an event that saw eight teams from across government in England take part.

Date:

2 March 2018

NHS Digital must be credited as the source of this information.

A team from NHS Digital's Digital Delivery Centre (DDC) has won Splunk's public sector 'Boss of the SOC' awards in an event that saw eight teams from across government in England take part.

The competition sets groups against each other with a series of questions of varying difficulty, testing their knowledge of both data security and the Splunk software2. Billed as a blue team, 'capture the flag' event, the scenarios emulate real security incidents, based on the competition creators' own experience in the field.

The team, from across NHS Digital's Digital Delivery Centre, were crowned successful after four hours of intense competition on Thursday, February 22, finishing an hour before their deadline.

Andrew Meyer, Programme Director of the Digital Delivery Centre at NHS Digital, said: "Every day sees our teams in the centre challenged, working across different platforms for a wide range of national projects. Data security is one of the most important and so it is great to see our staff doing so well in an event like this.

"While competitions like these are a light-hearted way of showcasing our abilities, they play a very real part in testing our software engineers and I am delighted that they have been rewarded for all their hard work, developing and honing their skills every day."

1. NHS Digital is the national information and technology partner of the health and care system. Our team of information analysis, technology and project management experts create, deliver and manage the crucial digital systems, services, products and standards upon which health and care professionals depend. Our vision is to harness the power of information and technology to make health and care better.

2. Splunk produces a suite of products that search, monitor, and analyse machine-generated big data, via a Web-style interface, using a standard API to connect directly to applications and devices. Its security software provides insight into machine data generated from security technologies such as network, endpoint, access, malware, vulnerability and identity information.